Sunday, January 01, 2006

Dick Clark: The End

Yikes. As my DoL pal LW notes, Dick Clark has finally gotten old. "New Year's Stroke Victim Eve" was not rockin' on ABC last night.

I tried to watch for a few minutes, but it was horrible. This is perhaps a little harsh, but not entirely wrong. (UPDATE: okay, not just harsh, but outrageous. "Retarded" is just wrong)

Dick C. sounded like Diane Rehm. And, yes, I fully realize what an insult that is. (Check the picture; had to be taken 30 years ago, easy, even it says 2004).

UPDATE: Chris L notes, in comments below, that Dick Clark on ABC was not nearly as painful as Stuart Scott on ESPN. I'm not sure I agree. Sure, straight up, Stu was much worse, like fingernails on a blackboard. But watching Dick made me think of his miraculous career, and longevity. (A satirical view) I'm old, but I have been watching/not watching Dick Clark on NY'sE for as long as I can remember. To see the mighty laid low was what made this painful for me. Stu, on ESPN, came across as a clown. But clown is what he is, what he does. BOO-yeh.

A counter-argument, from the NYT story on NY'sE coverage:

"A lot of stroke survivors, particularly celebrities, are very cautious about making their returns," said James Baranski, the executive director of the National Stroke Association, a nonprofit health-care organization. "For any stroke survivor to be able to see the progress that Dick Clark has made over the past year was remarkable. He did a marvelous job representing stroke survivors and their hope for recovery."

Well...okay. The main thing that having Dick Clark represent stroke survivors accomplished was having lots of viewers turn the channel. My dad had a stroke. He was brave, too, made a lot of progress coming back. Watching Dick Clark reminded me of how my dad was in the last six months of his life, not the first 84.5 years. I would rather remember the good part.

2 comments:

Chris Lawrence said...

Yep, what little I saw of Dick Clark was pretty painful. ABC should have kept Reege (who frankly looked out of place on Fox).

Of course, Dick Clark was nowhere near as painful as Stuart Scott on ESPN.

Anonymous said...

I thought you were talking about the libertarian, Dick Clark. I thought to myself: Wow, Munger is friends with Clark?! He really is connected to the best parts of the freedom movement. But seriously, you need to get ahold of what Clark has written on the history of jury nullification. It's excellent.